Will NC’s population growth help Republicans or Democrats? What Census data shows
The once-a-decade release of Census population data revealed North Carolina’s transformation over the last decade, as more people have opted for cities and suburbs over life in small towns. It has also shed light on what those shifts may mean for the political future of this swing state.
In the coming weeks, lawmakers in North Carolina’s General Assembly will use that data — derived from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 nationwide headcount — to draw new state legislative and congressional districts that are slated to be used for the next decade. How Republican legislative leaders draw those maps will influence which party controls the state and sets policy through 2030.
Ahead of the map drawing, though, the new Census data shows that, in a state whose political power has long rested in the hands of rural voters, cities and suburbs are growing both more populous. Those rural Republican strongholds that haven’t declined in population are growing at a much slower rate compared to urban and urban-adjacent areas, giving those who live in some of North Carolina’s more Democratic cities and counties more voting power than ever before.
Because Republicans control the legislature and thus the map-making process, the party isn’t at immediate risk of losing its legislative majority in one of the country’s most highly contested battleground states. North Carolina’s shifting populace, however, may deprive the party of its political edge in the long run.
“Rural representation has dominated North Carolina politics for a long time, and it’s shifting right before our eyes,” said Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper.
Putting ourselves on the scale
Because the Census Bureau collected its recently released data in 2020, Cooper said, the new population numbers by themselves are more reflective of what drove recent election outcomes, rather than predictive of future elections.
“It’s like we gained a bunch of weight, and we just finally put ourselves on the scale,” Cooper said. “We’re not going to see big shifts in vote for governor or U.S. Senate.”
In 2020, Republicans gained four seats in the state House and lost just one in the state Senate, the result of historic Republican turnout and a strong conservative base in some of the rural areas Democrats dominated decades ago. In others of the state’s more rural areas, some longtime Democratic lawmakers won by slim margins.
Rep. Charles Graham, a Democrat from Lumberton, is one of the few remaining Democrats representing the southern part of the state. Graham announced earlier this year he won’t run for his House seat in the once-Democratic dominated Robeson County, and will instead run for U.S. House — a sign that Graham may be less confident in his ability to hold onto the seat as the district changes in the coming years.
Robeson was one of 51 counties that lost population in the last decade, and it saw the largest decline of all counties, losing nearly 18,000 people. But as the county’s population has shrunk, it’s grown more Republican. A majority of voters in the county cast a ballot for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but Robeson went red in 2016. The county went for Trump that year and in 2020.
Republican success in areas with declining populations is also partly rooted in economics, as legislative candidates’ messages in recent years resonated in places that declined in population, Cooper said.
“When a county or a locale is hurting economically, the Republican Party message got through,” Cooper said. “It speaks to the increase in geographic polarization of North Carolina.”
Looking forward, Democratic lawmakers across the state may benefit from the state’s population shifts later in the decade.
“Democrats are doing better in virtually every county in the state that is growing in population,” said Democratic political consultant Morgan Jackson. “We’re getting more and more Democratic every year.”
Democrats are at a disadvantage for that same reason, though, because many of the party’s reliable voters are clustered in urban areas, while Republican supporters are sprinkled throughout the state.
Ahead of the 2022 election, Wake and Mecklenburg are expected to gain a combined three new state House seats, granting the two most populous counties a total of 26 representatives, most of whom are expected to be Democrats, in the chamber. Just two Republicans represent House districts in Wake, both winners by slim margins.
“Any Republican in the legislature in Wake and Mecklenburg county is an endangered species,” Jackson said. “They’re not going to consistently be able to hold those seats.”
Those three new House seats for two of the state’s most reliably Democratic areas will likely come from more rural parts of the state whose populations are either declining or growing slowly. That means parts of the state that tend to lean more Democratic will gain representation in the legislature because urban districts will need to be drawn smaller, while more Republican-leaning districts will lose representation because they’ll need to be drawn larger.
“We should anticipate a continuance in the battle in the (General Assembly) between the rural representatives and the urban representatives,” said Whitney Manzo, a political science professor at Meredith College.
Suburban areas and counties just outside of Wake and Mecklenburg may not be easy wins for Democrats in the coming years, as some still lean Republican.
Ultimately, though, North Carolina’s future, at least for the next decade, will be decided by how the Republican-led legislature draws political maps in the coming weeks, even if Democrats and voting rights activists challenge those maps in court, as they’re expected to.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Will NC’s population growth help Republicans or Democrats? What Census data shows."
